ABA Journal Blawg 100 Contest 2010

Don’t you just love contests?  They can be fun. They can be exciting especially if the prizes have value. But what’s this thing about the ABA Journal contest for the top 100 blogs? It seems that every year the ABA Journal runs a popularity contest to see who can garner the most votes by being the most popular.

Not only that, but once you are ‘nominated’ you now have to ‘encourage’ your readers, friends and colleagues to vote for you in order to get sufficient votes to push you over the top and beyond your competitors. What’s that about? You now have to campaign to your readers and tell them they have to ‘vote’ for you so you can get a special prize!

What’s the prize? Glad you asked. The winners of this contest get the ‘right’ to display the ABA Journal’s fancy logo that they can install on their website. Pretty neat looking logo. Makes me want to create my own.

All envy aside, this blog, The Lawyers Video Studio, was not nominated. I feel awful. I feel like a kid in the school yard who doesn’t get picked for the “A” team. Actually I don’t feel awful, nor do I feel bad. In fact, I don’t care about the ABA Journal contest. Even if I were nominated I wouldn’t care. Frankly, I don’t need to put a fancy logo from the ABA on my site. I have enough logos, videos, photos and content on my site that I love to write about and my readers love to read.

The only people I need to read and comment on my blog are readers who want to learn about using video to market their law firms.  Maybe I’ll run a contest to see who can write the nicest comment on my blog and then create a special logo and award the winner of that contest a nice fancy logo that they can put on their own blog or website. Nah. Instead, I’ll just focus on being the best video producer, video editor and video distributor the legal world has ever seen. (How’s that for patting myself on the back?) The ‘Thank You’ testimonials I receive from my grateful attorney clients are all I need to know I’m helping my fellow attorneys.

Have a great day.

Gerry

Mary Cary, founder of Video Blog Marketing in San Francisco, California had this to say about me and The Lawyers’ Video Studio:

“We are huge fans of Gerry Oginski at VideoBlogMarketing.com and here are the top three reasons why:

3. Gerry’s professional and natural presence on video – Gerry is real and you can feel his pure enthusiasm,

2.  Gerry is coaching attorney’s to move into this decade!  No offense attorneys, but sometimes you are a bit behind the times when it comes to your Internet presence – listen to Gerry, he knows what’s up,

and the #1 Reason Video Blog Marketing is a huge Fan of Gerry Oginski:

1. He sends inspiring and fun emails keeping us informed that bring a splash of joy to our day.  Thank you Gerry from Me, Mary Cary at Video Blog Marketing in San Francisco!

Keep up the great work Gerry!”

It’s always nice when someone gives a written testimonial. It’s even nicer when someone takes the time to create a video testimonial. Thank you Mary!

Mary Cary
VideoBlogMarketing.com | (415) 690.7112
Website / Blog Design | Internet Marketing | Video Production

Mary Cary, founder of Video Blog Marketing in San Francisco, California had this to say about me and The Lawyers’ Video Studio:

“We are huge fans of Gerry Oginski at VideoBlogMarketing.com and here are the top three reasons why:

3. Gerry’s professional and natural presence on video – Gerry is real and you can feel his pure enthusiasm,

2.  Gerry is coaching attorney’s to move into this decade!  No offense attorneys, but sometimes you are a bit behind the times when it comes to your Internet presence – listen to Gerry, he knows what’s up,

and the #1 Reason Video Blog Marketing is a huge Fan of Gerry Oginski:

1. He sends inspiring and fun emails keeping us informed that bring a splash of joy to our day.  Thank you Gerry from Me, Mary Cary at Video Blog Marketing in San Francisco!

Keep up the great work Gerry!”

It’s always nice when someone gives a written testimonial. It’s even nicer when someone takes the time to create a video testimonial. Thank you Mary!

Mary Cary
VideoBlogMarketing.com | (415) 690.7112
Website / Blog Design | Internet Marketing | Video Production

9 MUST ASK QUESTIONS

1. How long does it take to shoot my video?
2. How many actual video clips will I get as a final product?
3. Do you optimize my videos for the search engines?
4. Is search engine optimization included in the pricing?
5. Do you put my videos onto my blog or website?
6. Do you put my videos on your own website?
7. Do you create a blog post about my new videos?
8. Do you tweet about my new videos?
9. If I want to come back next month and do another series of videos, how much will you charge me?

The answers to these nine questions will give you a true understanding about the efforts of your video company to get you online and to get your videos watched. Simply creating a technically good-looking video accomplishes very little if the videos are not watched. On the other hand, you can have an amateur-looking video that gets watched thousands of times. The key is finding a video company with experience to get videos online, and importantly to get them watched. Simply posting your video to YouTube or other video sharing sites without paying close attention to the other details, simply misses the point.

If the video company that you are interested in does not offer the services listed above, ask them “Why not?”

The entire purpose of creating video is to get people to watch your video. If nobody comes to watch your video, you’ve spent a lot of money to achieve very little.

Ideally, you want a video company that has a lot of experience creating and producing video for lawyers. You want a company that makes you stand out from your competitors and does not produce cookie-cutter videos. You want a firm that goes the extra step of using all available social networking tools to promote your new video and get people to come and watch.

If you are a do-it-yourselfer like me, you can learn how to do it all on your own. On the other hand, the majority of attorneys want someone to do it all for them. That’s why I created a turn-key video creation system that allows you to get onto video and all you have to do is show up to shoot the video. All those extra steps I mentioned above? I do all of that, and that’s included in the price.

I encourage you to start creating video today and to explore the articles here on my blog and to learn more about my turn-key system. What are you waiting for? Pick up the phone and call me today.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. Have a great day!

______________________

Gerry is a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial lawyer in practice for over 21 years. He has produced and created over 200 educational and informative videos to help consumers understand how lawsuits work in the State of New York. If you want to see how Gerry has used video to promote his own practice click here.

Gerry created the Lawyers’ Video Studio to help lawyers get onto video. To get started with creating video to market your legal services, Gerry offers a simple and cost-effective turn-key video creation system where he does everything for you except appear on camera, click here to learn more.

You can reach Gerry personally at 516-487-8207 or by e-mail at Gerry@lawyersvideostudio.com. He welcomes your call.

Ever hear of Grant Griffiths? If you blog at all, you should know him. He’s the founder of BlogForProfit.com and he’s also known as the “BlawgFather” of blogging. He created an incredible 31 day (FREE) program called 31 Days To Kick Your Blog in the Butt. In this video you’ll learn the reasoning behind his 31 day program.

I had the chance to speak to Grant for a few minutes after I presented a lecture to a great group of lawyers at MILOfest (Macs in Law Office group). Grant was presenting a lecture about the importance of blogging, and my lecture was on the importance of attorneys creating video.

If you’re unfamiliar with Grant, you should know that he, together with his son, have created an incredible WordPress theme called Headway which allows you to make changes to your blog instantly without knowing any code at all. Check out Headwaythemes.com for yourself. I personally use it on my blog, lawyersvideostudio.com and encourage you to see for yourself how I use it.

Gerry Oginski, Esq.
Lawyers Video Studio
Great Neck, NY
516-487-8207

Defamation lawyer Adrianos Facchetti has created a video that provides viewers with helpful information about defamation law. But that’s not all. Facchetti virtually hits one out of the park by using animation to tell a story. I saw this type of animation about six months ago but didn’t think it was worth the time and effort to create. I was wrong. Facchetti’s video stands out. It’s not your typical lawyer video. Plus, it’s entertaining.

In the video, two animated characters — an Internet defamation attorney and a celebrity blogger — discuss the perils of publishing. The blogger asks the attorney if he can ask him a question about how to avoid being sued on his blog. The lawyer gives real, useful information. Toward the end of the video, the blogger asks if there’s anything else he can do to protect himself? The lawyer responds that there is more, but since he has to run, he wants the blogger to make an appointment so they have time to chat further. The video is refreshing, both from a content and technique standpoint. There’s even a funny line when the blogger says “That’s really good advice,” and the attorney responds “Of course, it’s coming from me.”

To read the full review, click here.

If you don’t know Tom Foster, CEO at Fosterwebmarketing.com, you should. Tom is the mastermind behind my website, oginski-law.com and over 200 lawyers’ websites across the country.

I had a chance to interview Tom recently at his Fairfax, Virginia office and I asked him how often an attorney should be blogging.

Tom is an expert at creating and promoting lawyer websites and truly ‘gets it’. He knows what works, and importantly, what doesn’t. You can find him at Fosterwebmarketing.com or call him at 888-886-0939. Oh yes, I almost forgot to mention that Tom and I have written a book together called “Creating Video For Lawyers,” which, if he finishes his part of the book soon, we’ll be able to get into print. Hurry up Tom, we’re all waiting!